


Consorors

by bobbiewickham, PilferingApples



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7206998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/pseuds/PilferingApples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mlle Lesgle--too poor, too mouthy, and too balding for a good marriage--joins a convent. </p><p>The rest is almost history.  (Fic by bobbiewickham, art by PilferingApples)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to PilferingApples and Eglantine for beta-reading!

* * *

 

“This way, Mlle Lesgle,” said Sister Eléonore.

Mademoiselle Joséphine Lesgle, late of Meaux, twenty-three-year-old maiden and soon-to-be sister of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, followed Sister Eléonore up the gleaming dark staircase, clutching her bag. Her new prison seemed mild enough so far. It smelled like polish and wax, and was not so ugly. Deadly dull, of course, but that was to be expected—and were those flowers in the wall sconce? A splash of life! Timid, certainly, but to be applauded here.

Joséphine reminded herself that she was _not_ joining the cloistered nuns of the Second Order. No, the sisters of the Third Order were actively involved in charity and good works, meaning they went so far as to leave their convent once in a while. They were not so dreary; they tolerated flowers on the wall. Perhaps they would forgive Joséphine if, on occasion, she laughed—or made _them_ laugh.

One could hope, anyway.

Sister Eléonore led her into a clean white octagonal room with six beds in different corners, neat and narrow. Once inside, Joséphine felt like an inkblot on a fresh page. She was surely the most disorderly object in the room.

“Mlle Enjolras,” said Sister Eléonore, with a certain sharpness. Joséphine, startled, looked around. She had thought she and Sister Eléonore were the only ones in the room. But, no—there was a woman of about Joséphine’s age perched on a small, straight chair in the corner by the window, in the full blaze of the morning light, reading a book.

“Mlle Enjolras,” Sister Eléonore repeated. The girl looked up, and Joséphine blinked: the girl was dazzling, even with her hair hidden, even in the shapeless habit. “This is Mlle Joséphine Lesgle, who will be joining us here. Please show Mlle Lesgle where everything is, and explain to her our daily duties. I’ve told her the rules, but she will only benefit from hearing them again.”

Mlle Enjolras nodded. “Very well,” was all she said, before Sister Eléonore bustled out.

Joséphine, feeling awkward, said, “Er. Well.”

Mlle Enjolras had evidently never been afflicted with awkwardness in her life. With unnerving poise, she rose from her chair. “Welcome.”

“Yes, well. Thank you,” said Joséphine, taking Mlle Enjolras’s outstretched hand.

“Did Sister Eléonore give you the introduction?”

Joséphine was fairly sure Sister Eléonore had done so, but Joséphine had not paid attention. Mlle Enjolras, quirking an eyebrow at her silence, gestured at the room. “As you see, this is the dormitory. I and several others—my friends—sleep here. I’ll introduce you to them. We sleep at nine o’clock, and rise at six in the morning. Meals are downstairs, breakfast at seven, dinner at noon, supper at five in the evening.” Mlle Enjolras recited all of this in an easy cadence, like someone who had heard this and repeated it before. “In the early morning, after mass, there are classes for those who wish to take them. The rest of the day, we might read, or pray, or work—in the garden, in the infirmary, giving lessons—or else go out to bring charity to those in need. Or—”

“What brought you here?” Joséphine blurted out. It was rude of her, to interrupt so, but she suddenly felt cold and alone and abandoned, in this clean white prison cell. She could not stand to hear more of routine, and of duty, rattled off so mechanically.

Mlle Enjolras turned a steady gaze on her, and Joséphine felt colder than ever. “Never mind,” Joséphine said, hastily, “I don’t mean to pry—”

“You’re not prying,” Mlle Enjolras said, touching Joséphine’s shoulder in reassurance, which was all the encouragement Joséphine needed to keep babbling.

“It’s just—you could have married, you’re beautiful, it would be easy for you…” Unlike Joséphine, whose hair started thinning at twenty, whose face looked like a horse’s, and whose tongue had a habit of running away with her. It made perfect sense for her to join the convent, to conserve the family’s money for her younger, prettier, more charming sisters’ dowries. But surely not so for Mlle Enjolras, who looked like an artist’s sculpture come to life.

The sculpture looked away, making a disgruntled face. In that moment, Joséphine began to like her. “I suppose could have married, if it meant a true partnership, a marriage of minds, devoted to the elevation of man through good works. But I never met such a man. I meant to help run my father’s print-shop. He’s a printer in Marseille—but I have uncles and cousins who can help him with that. And then—I felt called here.” The words were simple, but fervently spoken.

Joséphine suspected _she_ was now making a face. “Called, to live a dreary life alone!” It was an impetuous, ill-mannered outburst, but she could not bring herself to care.

Mlle Enjolras turned her head to look Joséphine full in the face. “It’s not dreary at all. I’ve been here three full months, and I’ll take my vows soon, and I can swear to you. It’s not dreary. And, you’ll see—we’re not alone.”

“Oh, yes,” Joséphine said, with a half-hysterical snort of laughter. “God is with us at all times, of course, I know it well—” And more unwelcome company, Joséphine could not imagine. She immediately felt guilty for thinking such a sinful thought, but at least no one could hear her.

For the first time in their conversation, Mlle Enjolras smiled. “I didn’t only mean God.”

***

“The partition of Poland is the greatest sin of the eighteenth century,” said Sister Feuilly—whose Christian name, Joséphine had been informed, was Marie, but who was called by her surname on account of there being too many Maries in the convent. “She prefers it,” Mlle Enjolras had explained, before diving headlong into a speech on Sister Feuilly’s many virtues, including devotion to justice for all peoples, generosity, courage, and intellect. Mlle Enjolras had also mentioned Sister Feuilly sometimes _painted fans_ to sell for charity, which seemed much too delicious a pun to be true.

At this remark about Poland (what happened in Poland? The Russians were there, weren’t they? Joséphine only had the vaguest of ideas), Joséphine threw a sidelong glance at Mlle Enjolras, who was wearing a deeply affectionate expression on her face.

“When I asked you to explain, I meant explain about the library,” Mlle Enjolras said, “though your explanations about Poland are always so illuminating.” Try as Joséphine might, she could detect no hint of teasing in Mlle Enjolras’s voice. The woman sounded entirely sincere.

“Oh, yes.” Sister Feuilly looked thoroughly unembarrassed. “The library. It’s here, and you may ask me for any book provided you return it in good condition. Mostly religious works, of course, but there is some history, some poetry, and some works on music. The selection on the saints of Poland, Greece, and Italy is remarkably fine, for such a small library—”

Joséphine nodded, hoping she looked suitably impressed.

“I do hope to see you here,” Sister Feuilly finished, after a long ramble during which Joséphine continued to nod at appropriate intervals. Sister Feuilly gave a sunny smile, which Joséphine returned. In truth she didn’t have half an idea what Sister Feuilly had gone on about. But there was something warming, nonetheless, in her enthusiasm, and her smile. “And, oh, perhaps you’d like to come with us into town, when we visit the sick and poor.”

“I’d like that.” Joséphine meant it. If she had to be here, she may as well do some good, and if it brought her outside the convent walls, so much the better.

“Where will you take her next? The infirmary?” Sister Feuilly, turning to slip a book back into its place, threw the question over her shoulder at Mlle Enjolras.

“I think Combeferre’s out in the garden,” Mlle Enjolras said. “We can go there next, if Mlle Lesgle doesn’t object?”

“Not at all.” Gardens were pleasant enough. Besides, Joséphine was becoming curious about what sort of oddity Mlle Enjolras would introduce her to next.

***

“Combeferre,” Mlle Enjolras called out, to the gangly figure hovering over some nettles.

There was no response. Mlle Enjolras approached the figure, trailing Joséphine behind her. When they reached, and the figure still paid them no mind, Mlle Enjolras touched her shoulder.

The figure jumped. “Oh! Enjolras. These nettles are looking particularly fine, I think—oh, I see, our new arrival?” She looked at Joséphine and, in an instant, seemed to narrow from a cloud of intellectual abstraction into a rapier-point of fierce scrutiny.

Joséphine felt like a field mouse spotted by a falcon. She took a half-step back, and opened her mouth, and frantically tried to think of something proper to say.

Mlle Enjolras, who did not seem terrified at all, smiled faintly. “Yes. She just came this morning. Mlle Lesgle, this is Sister Sébastienne Combeferre. She tends to the garden, works in the infirmary, translates, writes, draws, studies and teaches natural philosophy and metaphysics and theology, and—oh, she does so many things, I won’t try to list them all.” Mlle Enjolras’s voice was even; still, Joséphine could tell it would take very little prompting for her to give an oration of glowing tribute.

“Delighted,” Joséphine said, suppressing a laugh. “I’m Joséphine Lesgle, and I don’t do much of anything, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, but we can help you with that,” said the accomplished Sister. “You haven’t been encouraged to do much of anything, perhaps not even permitted to! Young ladies are forbidden any real useful labor until they’re married. And even then, it’s so limited. It’s a shame, and indeed a sin. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden to work, to build _new_ gardens, not for Eve to be a mere ornament. Now that you’re to be a sister, you _can_ work, the way a fine lady would find it very difficult to do. What would you _like_ to do, now that you have the chance?”

Joséphine gulped. Mlle Enjolras and Sister—what was it?—Something Combeferre, anyway—were looking at her. Joséphine suspected it would not do to answer with _laugh, make witty remarks, and have tea and cakes with friends._

She searched for the most serious honest answer, for somehow she felt she didn’t wish to lie. It was uncomfortable, being both serious and honest. Joséphine was unaccustomed to it. “Good works, I suppose,” she said, after an awkward pause, and then felt the need to say more. Somehow that answer left too much emptiness. “Visiting the poor, yes, that sort of thing—but surely there can also be something done so they no longer have to be poor, and don’t always have to be _asking_ for things, instead of having enough to live on as a matter of right? I don’t know. It seems so…absurd, and humiliating, like having to beg and plead before being permitted to breathe the air. My family gave to charity, before we fell on hard times, but…” She broke off, with a laugh at herself. “I make no sense, I know. Forgive me, Sister—Sébastienne, is it? It’s still early in the morning, and my wits haven’t woken yet. ”

“Call me Combeferre. Everyone else does. Sister Sébastienne twists the tongue too much, in any case. I have a second name, Jeanne-Lucie, but we have another Jeanne, even if she spells it oddly—”

“Everyone has Jeanne in her name somewhere,” Joséphine interjected. “I probably do myself and have simply forgotten it, from disuse—”

“—but that is besides the point. You make more sense than you realize.” Combeferre continued firmly, over Joséphine’s prattle. “Of course you can come with us when we visit the poor. You’ll find our good works are not entirely like those of other convents you might know of.” She looked at Mlle Enjolras. “At least, Enjolras and I, and our friends…we do things a little differently. You’ll see.”

“Yes,” came a dreamy voice from behind , floating as if carried on a gentle wind. Gentleness notwithstanding, Joséphine jumped, and turned around.

A wide-eyed, habit-clad young woman stood there. Her skin was dark as ebony, and Joséphine tried not to stare. She had never met a black person before, and didn’t know what to make of one.

Mlle Enjolras gave another faint half-smile, which Joséphine was beginning to suspect was the equivalent of a broad, delighted grin from anyone else. “Sister Jeanne Prouvaire, this is Mlle Lesgle, our newest sister-to-be.”

“Jehanne is spelled with an ‘h,’” said Sister Jehanne, speaking softly but with emphasis. “As they spelled it in the medieval era, when our Order was formed. As Jehanne d’Arc would have spelled it.”

“Ah, I see,” said Joséphine, after a pause spent wondering what in heaven’s name the purpose of this strange spelling was. “It is very good to meet you, Sister.” She noted the pot of violets in Sister Jehanne’s hands. “Do you tend to the garden, too?”

“A little.” Sister Jehanne fidgeted and looked away, and her voice went softer. “I take care of the flowers.”

“Jehanne is very good with the flowers,” Combeferre said. “They are always very healthy. But, Mlle Lesgle, in light of what you’ve said—the three of us, and Feuilly, were going out to a church luncheon for the poor next week. Would you like to join us?”

Well, would she have anything better to do? “Of course.” Joséphine hoped it would not be as dreary as the church luncheons she’d been dragged to with her mother, once or twice.

“Excellent. Well, I’ll let Enjolras finish showing you the place, then.” Combeferre turned back to her nettles. Jehanne wandered off dreamily like a flower petal drifting away on a breeze.

“This way,” said Mlle Enjolras, and Joséphine followed, with rather more liveliness than she had felt at first. The sisters here were far pleasanter than she’d thought they would be. Odd—very odd—but then, that simply made it more interesting. Joséphine would have something amusing to write about to her family, back home in Meaux.


	2. Chapter 2

A week went by, during which Joséphine stumbled through her new life and did her best to learn it. She met other sisters at the convent, but somehow she kept coming back to the ones Mlle Enjolras had introduced her to on her first day. They were the oddest, the most passionate (even Mlle Enjolras, for all she seemed so contained), the most _magnetic_. She was never bored when speaking to them. If they weren’t nearby, Joséphine found herself seeking them out. When given the option of choosing her dormitory, Joséphine unhesitatingly chose the one Mlle Enjolras shared with her friends. They made the convent much more bearable.

By the time the church luncheon day rolled around, she was accustomed to wearing her habit; still, wearing it to the luncheon made her feel unutterably silly. The habit made her want to do something perverse, like find a nice young gentleman and waltz with him, or jump up onto a table and sing. 

She stood behind a food-heavy table, in between Combeferre and Jehanne (Joséphine couldn’t get the odd spelling out of her mind), ladling out soup. It wasn’t long before Combeferre was drawn away by a woman who suffered from headaches. Combeferre gave her lengthy instructions about medicines and proper sleeping habits, while the woman nodded earnestly and repeated the key names and details to herself.

Joséphine stared out into the milling crowd. There were so many of them. All hungry, all beaten, and all with nothing to do about it, except seek the mercy of the sisters, who were themselves powerless in the face of most troubles. The sisters—and the occasional charitable lady. Joséphine could see them delicately picking through the crowd, in their fine cloaks and frocks and gloves. She tried not to be envious. With her luck, if she had a gown like that, it would likely tear anyway, or else she’d keep growing too fat for it and it would have to be constantly let out.

One of them wasn’t quite so delicate. A lady Joséphine’s age dashed through the crowd laughing, accompanied by a friend carrying a large bundle. “Come now, Joly, leave the clothes you’re giving away over there, and then let’s see if—oh! Enjolras!”

Mlle Enjolras looked up from the clothes she was sorting into piles. “Courfeyrac. It’s good to see you.”

The lady—Mlle Courfeyrac?—raced over, her chestnut curls bouncing, and swooped down to kiss Mlle Enjolras’s cheek in greeting. “Everyone’s here, it seems? Jehanne, darling!” She kissed Jehanne as well, smiling at her broadly. “And I saw Feuilly over there, talking to those Polish women, and Combeferre is doctoring, and…” She stopped when she saw Joséphine, looking her up and down. “A new one! How long before she realizes you’re all holy terrors, and flees for her life?” She laughed. “Now that I think on it, _Holy Terrors_ would be an excellent title for you, given our views. Though only if I can be an honorary member.” Joséphine did not know what that meant, but made a mental note to find out. In any case, Mlle Enjolras gave her a disapproving look—which just made Mlle Possibly-Courfeyrac laugh harder. “Joly!” The laughing lady beckoned to the friend she’d been with a moment before, who came over in a less explosive fashion.

“Mlle Lesgle is joining our order,” said Mlle Enjolras. “Mlle Lesgle, this is Mme Berteuil—we call her Courfeyrac, which was her maiden name. And this—” She gestured at Courfeyrac’s friend, whose light-brown hair curled around her dimpled cheeks. “—is Mme Tirolien.”

“We call her Joly,” said Courfeyrac, with another charming grin. “Her maiden name was Joly and she’s much too pretty to lose it.”

Joly turned slightly pink, and grinned herself. The grin took over her entire face. “Have you always lived in Paris, Mlle Lesgle?”

“No, I hail from Meaux. Not in the center of things, but not far enough away to be interesting, alas. If I were from Marseille or Lyon, you might find me a strange and exciting southerner. But no, I’m simply dull and prosaic.” Joséphine felt—almost shy? It was not a feeling she was accustomed to in the least.

“We’re all from the Midi,” Jehanne said, “so it would not be exciting or strange to us.”

Joly’s eyes grew wide. “Meaux? You’re joking. You must be. Oh, but that’s too perfect.”

There was something very nice about hearing Joly call anything about her perfect, however trivial. “Why?”

Joly giggled. “Because you’re _Lesgle de Meaux_ \-- _l’aigle de mots_ \--you’re Bossuet!” She giggled again, then looked around and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I know that’s horribly impious of me—” She kept giggling, in spite of her supposed remorse.

“No,” said Joséphine, grinning back at her. “It’s wonderful! Henceforth I will only answer to Bossuet. Whose funeral oration should I give?”

“If anyone calls you Bossuet in front of the Prioress, you can start with theirs,” said Courfeyrac. “Now _there’s_ a holy terror for you.”

“It will be our secret code name for you,” said Sister Feuilly, popping up behind Courfeyrac with two bedraggled-looking women in tow. Joséphine ladled out soup for them. 

“Thank you,” said the first, in heavily accented French. Joséphine vaguely thought it was Eastern of some sort—perhaps Polish? Feuilly spoke an excessive amount about Poland, after all.

“Are you new?” The other said, her accent similar. 

Joséphine suppressed a sigh. “Yes. I just came to the convent last week.”

“Oh, very good!” The first one beamed. Joséphine managed a polite smile in response, and valiantly did _not_ say anything similar to _that’s easy for you to say, since you haven’t been sentenced to perpetual virginity._ Somehow she suspected that would not be a proper thing for a _réligieuse_ to say.

“The sisters here have been so good to us, haven’t they, Kamilia?” The second woman put in eagerly. “Feuilly’s been helping us with this trouble with our boss—”

Kamilia gave her a look, and the second woman fell silent. Joséphine’s curiosity, of course, was only excited by this, but it was no good. The women bustled off with Feuilly.

Not that Joséphine had much time to mind. Joly caught her attention once more: “How long have you been standing there serving soup?”

_Too long_ , Joséphine wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. It had likely been less than an hour anyway.

Joly further proved her delightfulness by saying, “Take a break and come with me for a walk, and you can tell me how you came here.” By way of coaxing, she gave a bright and eager smile.

Joséphine wanted nothing more than to go, but—she couldn’t abandon Sister Jehanne and Mlle Enjolras to the soup, could she? “Go,” said Mlle Enjolras, with a faint smile, catching the look on her face.

Very well, she could. Courfeyrac, Jehanne, and Enjolras could keep each other company, so Joséphine did not feel guilty.

Joly slipped her arm through Joséphine’s and steered her through the crowd, to the quiet street outside the church. They walked and chattered for some time, Joséphine telling Joly about her family and Meaux and her tragic lack of a real dowry, Joly talking of where she came from in the Midi, and how she had come to befriend the sisters at the convent. 

“I was bored,” Joly said frankly, “and I wanted something to do. I’d been studying medicine from books, but I couldn’t do that all day. And my husband travels often. And you know, parties and calling on people is all right, it’s all very nice, but it can’t occupy one’s _mind._ ”

Joséphine mulled this. It wasn’t something she had considered before, not outright—but hadn’t she been bored, often enough, at home? “I would not imagine a convent would be the best place to flee to if you’re looking for an end to your boredom.”

“Oh, but it was!” They turned a corner onto a busy street, and Joséphine blinked at the sudden tumult. “Combeferre is just wonderful. She studies medicine, so I can talk to her about that, and we can try experiments…and Enjolras and Feuilly, well, you can see what they’re like at a glance, can’t you? Talking to them makes everything seem brighter and clearer, somehow. And Jehanne…oh, she’s just a darling, and she’s brilliant, you know. She writes such beautiful poems, and she reads just about everything. Courfeyrac and I, we visit them all the time.”

“Hmm,” said Joséphine. “I’d hardly have guessed Courfeyrac—or you, for that matter—to be one for prayer and quiet.”

“And neither are you?” said Joly, with a shrewd look at Joséphine, as they rounded onto a quiet street where the sunlight fell unobstructed. “That’s all right. The convent is much livelier than many—mostly thanks to those four. I think you’ll like it there. I—” She laughed. “I sometimes envy everyone there.”

“ _Envy_!” Joséphine winced. She supposed she sounded very querulous. “I don’t mean to sound self-pitying, but how could you envy us? You—you’re married…” And had fine dresses, and was so very pretty, and seemed to have everything a woman could want.

“Yes.” Joly gave a shrug. “My husband is a good man.” A terse answer, but a weighty one. Not _I love him_ , or _I’m so happy_ , but _he is a good man._

To fill the silence, Joséphine said, “I suppose it won’t be so bad. For me, I mean. The other ladies here, they do seem…” She was about to say _nice_ , but it didn’t seem the right word.

“They do, don’t they?” Joséphine saw Joly grin out of the corner of her eye. “I’ve known them all ages—well, I’ve known Enjolras for months, and the others for longer. They like you, too. I can tell.”

“Is that why you envy them—us?” Joséphine could understand that, if these were Joly’s friends.

“Why, yes. My husband is off on business so much, you know, and it gets lonely in the house, and…well, even if he were there…it’s, oh, it would be such fun to live with other ladies, and talk all day and night, and…”

“I think the Prioress would object to that. I believe she expects us to pray in between the chatting, on occasion, though I can’t think why.” 

“Oh, yes.” Joly looked up at Joséphine. She was a head shorter, and her upturned face was very serious. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you’re…irreligious, or anything like that…”

Joséphine struggled heroically not to laugh. Not being cut out for heroic struggle, she was soon giggling. “I—well—I can’t be irreligious, can I, now that I’m here at the convent…but no, I didn’t think you meant that.”

“Oh, good,” Joly said, with a slight laugh herself. “I don’t want to be insulting!”

“I’m afraid I have no piety to insult,” Joséphine admitted.

“I’m sure that isn’t true, not of the Eagle of Meaux.” Joly gave her a sly glance, and Joséphine rolled her eyes.

“You can deliver an oration to express your discontent with the new nickname, my dear Bossuet. I will be a ready audience, whenever you like, for how could I miss the opportunity to hear such a fine speaker—”

“Hush,” said Joséphine, still grinning.


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks passed, faster than Joséphine would have guessed they would. The strangeness of the dormitory bed, of talking with the others till they fell asleep at night, of the food (bland) and the prayers (boring) and the afternoons in the library or in the garden, the excursions into the city, the visits from Courfeyrac and Joly—all of it faded, and became ordinary.

Joly and Courfeyrac came by at least twice a week, sometimes more, and stayed for hours, to Joséphine’s surprised delight. “How do you manage this?” Joséphine said to Courfeyrac, one day at the end of her third week at the convent, as they were trying to climb the garden wall for sport. There were cracks between the bricks, which made tolerable handholds, though they both kept landing in the grass. “I know Joly’s husband is gone for travel, but doesn’t yours object to your…excessive piety?”

Courfeyrac burst into laughter. “Oh, no. And do you think I’d brook it if he did? But no, my Gilbert’s not that sort. He and I, we have an arrangement.”

“Yes,” Joséphine said, puzzled, “it’s called marriage.”

“No,” Courfeyrac drawled, “it’s how marriage is _transformed_ , to make it bearable. Gilbert and I were childhood friends. He was always sweet and shy and gentle, and I was always—as you see me now. Together we would play Lancelot and Guinevere—I would be Lancelot, of course.” Joséphine snorted. “Oh, I rescued him from innumerable dragons and captivities and wicked knights and other persecutions. Our parents tried to correct us, told us it should be the other way around, but--” Courfeyrac achieved the top of the wall and, since no one else was close by, permitted herself a shout of victory. “Well, it never worked. When we got older I learned about La Maupin, and then our games became La Maupin and d’Albert, and—” Here she waggled her eyebrows.

Joséphine laughed. “Who’s La Maupin?”

Courfeyrac gave her a look of exaggerated shock, followed by a wide grin. “My dear! How can you not know! Never mind, I’ll tell you all about her some other time—but you see, the point is, Gilbert understands me.” This was said with sudden earnestness. “And I him. He does not tyrannize over me, and I don’t expect the usual husbandly things from him, either. We married each other because we loved each other, and because it was an excellent scheme for freeing the both of us. From our parents, from school, from—oh, from so many things. It made it perfectly respectable for us to go away together and do just what we please.”

“It does sound very happy all around,” Joséphine admitted, falling from halfway up the wall. “Though…he is still your husband and can assert those rights any time he changes his mind, I suppose.”

“I’ve known him since we were babies. He will not do that, and if he does, I know just how to stop him. I’ve learned that by now.” Courfeyrac leaped from her perch at the top in a billow of skirts. “Secrets are powerful—but I only have them as a matter of principle, for I don’t hold with tyranny. I know I won’t need to use them. Gilbert’s a man of honor.” She rose from the ground, and brushed off her skirts.

Joly would sometimes bring a friend who called herself Mme Grantaire, and who had been visiting the convent in Joly’s company for nearly as long as Joly herself. Judging solely from Mme Grantaire’s words, one might be forgiven for believing she only came to the convent to mock it. She poked cheerful fun at Joséphine’s clothes and gait and hair; she scoffed at God, at love, at devotion, at charity; she made political innuendos that Joséphine didn’t understand, but that provoked Feuilly to indignation, Combeferre to sardonicism, and Enjolras to icy disdain. Yet this didn’t stop Grantaire from returning to the convent with Joly, and sometimes Joséphine would catch her listening to Enjolras’s earnest reasoning with a hungry-eyed stare. 

Joséphine couldn’t help liking her. Grantaire was too good-natured—and, often, too amusing—to be disliked. “She mocks everything, but you mustn’t pay her any mind, she doesn’t truly mean it,” had been Joly’s introduction.

“I like to mock many things myself,” said Joséphine, with a grin at Grantaire.

“And they let you join them here? Careful, or you’ll find yourself thrown out to live among those of us who don’t understand God, nor anything else but liberty and love. The Roman punishment for irreverent Vestal Virgins was being buried alive, you know.” Grantaire said all this very cheerfully, as if she were paying Joséphine a great compliment.

“Grantaire is not her husband’s name,” Joly confided to Joséphine, on one visit when Joly had come alone. “They’re estranged, and he doesn’t like her using his name.”

This was pleasingly sensational, and added to Joséphine’s vague feeling of sympathy for Grantaire. Somehow, she suspected Grantaire was unhappy, for all her relentless good humor.

The clock struck three, and Joséphine grimaced. “Well, I must be off.” She had sewing and prayers and supper, after which she was thankful to escape to the dormitory, where she found Feuilly and Enjolras in quiet conference by the window.

“Of course I’ll come with you,” Enjolras was saying, “but I haven’t even taken my vows yet. I can’t imagine what influence I could have on their employer.”

Feuilly shrugged and gave a wry smile. “It’s more for my sake. For morale. I—am not sure how I’ll be received.”

“They have every reason to listen to you. But I’m happy to help any way I may.”

“Help with what?” Joséphine said, unable to restrain her nosiness. Was this gossip? Joséphine lived for gossip. A typical feminine sin, she knew, but one she committed frequently and with great ardor.

Feuilly and Enjolras looked at each other, then looked at Joséphine for a long moment, then looked at each other once more.

Enjolras gestured at Feuilly, indicating it was her decision. Joséphine was not hurt by their hesitance—she’d known them for less than a month, she could well understand they wouldn’t wish to spill all their secrets before her—but she _was_ impatient. She wanted her gossip. “The two women we met at the luncheon some weeks ago,” Feuilly said slowly. “Kamilia and Anna. They work in a hat shop, sewing flowers on hats, and they asked me to speak with their employer. She hasn’t paid them for the past week.”

“Surely she can’t do that,” Joséphine protested. That wasn’t allowed, was it? Surely it was against the law.

“She can’t rightly do that,” Enjolras said. “But she’s been doing it nonetheless. These women have no recourse.” She gave a slight smile, and turned an admiring look on Feuilly. “Except Feuilly. Feuilly said she would try to help them.”

Feuilly, for her part, turned faintly pink. “Try. Yes. I said I’d try. I still don’t think this lady will listen to me. Those poor women, they see this habit and believe I have authority, but it’s not so. Because they would hear advice from someone sworn to the service of God, they believe their employer will, too, but…”

“Well, I think it’s marvelous,” Joséphine said. “Good for you!” She forced herself to wait half a beat before adding, with what she fancied was a casual air, “Can I come? Only if I won’t be a nuisance, of course, and please tell me if I am, I won’t be offended at all. I only ask because I want to see the different things you do with your days, so I can learn how best to be of use—” And because she wanted to get out and about as much as possible, but she would not dwell on that motive.

Enjolras looked at Feuilly again, but this time her eyes were wide and shining, and she was barely suppressing a smile. It was Feuilly who spoke again: “Why, yes. Of course. We’d welcome your company. Though I must say—this is _not_ how I usually spend my days.”

“And why not?” Joséphine demanded, grinning. “It would be a most excellent thing to do, roaming the streets of Paris and scolding wrongdoers. The city would be much improved.”

“I agree.” Enjolras’s voice was perfectly solemn. Joséphine could detect no hint of a joke. “The world would do better to listen to Feuilly.”

“If the world listened more to the oppressed peoples, it would have no need to listen to anyone like me—”

“I thank you both for indulging me, then,” Joséphine said, hastily. She had every sympathy for the oppressed peoples but was not certain she wished to hear about them immediately before bedtime. “I will find you tomorrow?”

“We will leave at ten,” said Enjolras. “Good night.” Her face didn’t change, but Joséphine seemed to hear a smile in her voice.

***

The proprietor of the hat shop was a blowzy woman of fifty-odd, a Mme Dernier, with a pinched face and a prim set to her mouth, who hastily ushered them into her private office well out of the sight of the curious workers. Mme Dernier did not look pleased to meet Feuilly, though she had to pretend to some courtesy. The habit commanded such things, even from the irreligious at heart. So Mme Dernier greeted Feuilly with polite stiffness, and even nodded to Joséphine and Enjolras, who wore the habit even if they had not yet taken their vows.

Joséphine was deeply tickled by this, as she had been by the slight but noticeable deference they had received on the street. Nothing too obvious—simply people jostling somewhat less.

More striking was the freedom. Joséphine had not thought to find _freedom_ in joining a convent. But to go where she pleased, as she pleased, with only two other young unmarried women for chaperones—that was a satisfaction so powerful it made her dizzy. She’d never tasted anything like it before.

“Sister Marie—” Joséphine remembered with a slight start that Feuilly’s Christian name was Marie. “—you mean well, I know, but you don’t understand that this is business. Not charity. Business.”

Feuilly flushed. Joséphine longed to say something—many somethings—but uncharacteristically bit her tongue. This was Feuilly’s plan, and Joséphine didn’t wish to ruin it with ill-timed babbling. “Your workers don’t work for you out of charity, either, madame. They do so to earn their livings, to feed their children, and they can’t do so without you paying them the wages they’ve earned.”

Now it was Mme Dernier’s turn to flush, though her lips stayed in their prim set. “They’ll be paid. They must be patient.”

“Why _must_ they? You owe them their wages now, not when you please!” Feuilly’s indignant voice rang out like a tocsin.

It was as this moment that the door to the private office swung open. The workers flooded in, Kamilia at their head, her arms folded. “She’s right. We work here to get paid, and we haven’t. You have no right to keep our wages from us, none at all.”

“If you don’t like it,” Mme Dernier said, “the door is that way.” She jerked her head in its direction.

“Come now, Mme Dernier,” Feuilly began.

“With all due respect, you know nothing of this. You are not a woman of business—”

“She’s a woman of _God_ ,” Kamilia snapped. “You should heed her.” She took a step forward.

“Leave,” said Mme Dernier. “Don’t bother coming into work tomorrow, I’ll have none of you.” Her hand curled protectively around the strongbox on her desk.

A mistake. Joséphine knew it was a mistake as soon as Mme Dernier did it, and Mme Dernier herself evidently realized it one second after, judging from the look on her face. Kamilia’s hawk-like gaze followed Mme Dernier’s hand. “So! You keep money in that box.”

“That money is ours,” said another worker, next to Kamilia. Like quicksilver, she slid past Kamilia, snatched the box from Mme Dernier, and melted into the crowd of women blocking the office door.

“Stop,” Mme Dernier half-gasped, half-shouted. “Stop it right this second—Sister Marie, tell her! Tell that hussy to bring it back!”

Feuilly’s face went blank. Her mouth opened, remained open for one indecisive second, and then closed so firmly Joséphine almost expected to hear a snapping sound. Feuilly raised her chin, and said nothing at all.

Joséphine felt a surge of exhilaration, without really knowing why. Mme Dernier, seeing Feuilly’s lack of response, let out a huff of mingled frustration and fear. But to her credit, Mme Dernier charged bravely into the mass of women, searching for the one who had seized the box. Kamilia moved to block her. Mme Dernier raised a hand to slap Kamilia’s face, and then to slap her again when she refused to move—

—only to be stopped by Enjolras’s fingers closing around Mme Dernier’s wrist. Somehow Enjolras had glided, with a dancer’s grace, in front of Joséphine and Feuilly, fast enough to stay Mme Dernier’s blow.

Mme Dernier tried to pull her wrist away. She wound up thrashing like a trapped animal of some sort. Enjolras’s grip appeared to be as unbreakable as steel. “Stop,” said Feuilly. “Let her go—it’s all right. Now be sensible, Mme Dernier…”

“Sensible! You talk to me of sense! You fool—”Mme Dernier, rubbing her wrist, sputtered to a furious halt, too overcome to speak more. She looked wildly from Feuilly to the women at the door, as if unable to decide whom to attack.

“We’ll leave for now, and you can think better of things,” said Kamilia, after a conference with some of the other women, conducted in soft and indistinct murmurs. “We’ll distribute our wages out from the box. You won’t be able to replace us all right away. So we will come in tomorrow like always, and all this can be forgotten. If you let it.”

The women melted away. “Well, er. Good day, then.” Feuilly, looking awkward, led an impassive Enjolras and a gleeful, terrified Joséphine out the door.

“How amazing!” Joséphine managed to say, halfway back to the convent. She had been lost for words until then: a milestone of some sort, for her.

Enjolras gave her a wry half-smile, and said nothing. Feuilly just frowned. “I’m glad they have the money, but…”

“But what? You saw justice done!” Joséphine let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Oh, it was frightening—I’ve never been in such a, such a _rough_ circumstance. But it was marvelous nonetheless. _You_ were marvelous, both of you.”

“It may not get back to the Prioress’s ears,” Enjolras said, smiling at Joséphine again before turning to Feuilly.

“I’m not frightened,” Feuilly said, with a hint of stubbornness in her voice, as Joséphine realized the strict Prioress might not approve of what had happened. (But why not? How could one rightly disapprove?)

Enjolras smiled again. “There would be no shame if you were, but I know you’re not…only it’s best for all concerned, I think, if the Prioress hears nothing.” She had a calculating look in her eye, a look Joséphine found slightly chilling.

Feuilly snorted. “Well, I won’t be telling her!”

Enjolras slipped her arm through Feuilly’s. “You acted for the best, my friend. You couldn’t rightly have told the workers to give the money back. It was theirs.”

“I know,” sighed Feuilly. “I just hope no one hears of this.”


	4. Chapter 4

Joséphine could have told Feuilly that beginning any sentence with “I just hope…” was a temptation to Providence, or luck, to do the exact opposite of whatever one hoped for.

Joséphine, Enjolras, and Feuilly arrived in time for the midday meal. Nothing happened. No one mentioned the incident at the hat shop. Joséphine breathed a sigh of relief. After they ate, Joséphine helped Combeferre and Jehanne in the garden for hours, until she was hot, aching, breathing hard, and covered with a most unladylike amount of dirt and sweat.

She was trudging to the dining hall for supper when she heard the stentorian tones of the Prioress from within the office by the hall. “Really, Sister Marie! I expected better from you. Inciting such behavior!”

“I incited nothing, Sister—”

“You don’t expect me to believe that. Not with what I heard from Mme Briault, who heard it straight from poor Mme Dernier!”

“I was there, and I saw it,” came the deep, rich voice that Joséphine easily recognized as belonging to Enjolras. “Sister Marie did not incite anyone. She simply refused to condone Mme Dernier’s thievery.”

“Thievery.” The Prioress’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Oh, I see. So you were playing policeman, Sister Marie, hmm?”

“I wasn’t playing at all.”

There was silence for a moment. Joséphine stood still outside the door, eavesdropping without shame. Then the Prioress, with the tone of someone ending an argument, said, “You will go without supper tonight, Sister Marie, and you will spend the time examining your conscience until it is time to retire.”

“That’s most unjust,” Enjolras protested. “Sister Marie is no guiltier than I am, and deserves no more punishment.”

“Sister Marie has taken her vows and is a senior sister here. She should know better. But if you insist, Mlle Enjolras, you also may go without supper and examine your conscience.”

Another silence, while Joséphine winced. “That will be all,” said the Prioress.

The sound of chairs scraping on the floor reminded Joséphine she should probably move, or else be caught listening. Hastily, she darted into the dining hall. She had an uneasy feeling she should probably volunteer to miss supper and examine her conscience as well. After all, Enjolras was no guiltier than she.

But the gardening had been hard work, and Joséphine could smell fresh bread and some sort of stew. The sound of her conscience was quickly drowned by the grumbling of her stomach. She slipped into the dining hall, and took a seat by Combeferre.

Combeferre gave Joséphine a thoughtful frown in lieu of a greeting. “Have you seen Enjolras, or Feuilly?”

“Not seen, exactly,” said Joséphine, settling in for food and gossip, “but I can tell you where they are. That is, after I eat.”

***

“Here,” Joséphine said. She reached into her habit-sleeve and pulled out a napkin, with a few hunks of bread wrapped in it, and handed it to Feuilly. “It’s not much, but it’s better than starving for the night.”

Combeferre and Jehanne produced more bread from their habits, Combeferre handing hers to Enjolras, and Jehanne setting hers on the nightstand. Feuilly frowned. “I think perhaps I should accept my punishment.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Joséphine said. “You did nothing wrong!”

Enjolras unwrapped her bread. “See, Feuilly, I’m eating mine. It would hardly be just for you to go without, when I’m eating, and I’m at least as guilty as you.”

“I’m the senior one, and therefore more responsible,” said Feuilly, but she still brightened, and tore off a piece of bread to eat.

“More to be credited, you mean.” Combeferre sank gracelessly down onto the edge of her bed. She was all legs and arms, and put Joséphine in mind of a harmless breed of spider. “You did exactly right. Your actions were entirely Christian.”

“Well, I think so,” said Feuilly, “and I would not act differently if given the chance. But it feels like cheating to avoid the punishment for it, somehow. I know it’s irrational, but there it is.”

“Just so long as you know it, and don’t let your feelings prevent you from eating that bread,” said Jehanne. “It’s Mme Dernier who should be punished. She’s depriving the poor of their rights, and withholding justice from the oppressed.” Joséphine could tell Jehanne was quoting something, but had no idea what. She suspected she was going to have to get accustomed to not knowing what the other sisters were talking about.

“People will be very inspired by what happened,” Jehanne continued, in her dreamy voice. “Why, some already have been.”

Enjolras looked at her questioningly. Jehanne blushed, for no apparent reason. “I met a lady today. A Mme Bahorel.”

Combeferre, who had gone to the armoire to fetch her nightgown, paused with her hand on the knob. “Oh?” There was an inflection in her voice Joséphine couldn’t quite describe.

“She came to the convent shortly before supper, and visited the garden.” Jehanne’s voice had grown very soft. Joséphine had to strain to hear her. “She heard about what happened from one of the workers who’d shown up to our luncheon—Anna, I believe. She was very admiring.”

“Then she has good sense in this, at least,” Combeferre said, her voice very dry. “Though I’m not sure Mme Bahorel’s approval is a prize we should seek as a general rule.”

“Oh, but why not?” Jehanne turned her big, wide eyes on Combeferre. “She seemed a very nice lady.”

“I’m not sure Mme Bahorel can be called a lady at all, let alone a _nice_ one,” Combeferre said, with a shrug. With a glimmer of a smile, she added, “I’m not sure Mme Bahorel herself would care to be called such!”

Now _that_ sounded tantalizing. Joséphine wanted to hear more, but Jehanne cut in before Joséphine could ask about it. “How can you say that?” Jehanne’s voice rose, in evident anger and distress. “She was so very warm and kind and good! A good woman, if not a _lady_. I scorn the title of lady, if Mme Bahorel can’t be called by it!”

There were tears in Jehanne’s eyes. Combeferre hastily put her hands up. “I mean no insult by that! You know I think there’s no value in being a fine lady. I’ve met Mme Bahorel. I like her very much. I joke at her expense, but only in friendship.” Combeferre’s faint glimmer of a smile turned into a real one. “As she does at mine. Often. What I meant is, she’s not respectable, and doesn’t wish to be. She’d fight you if you called her respectable. And she isn’t renowned for her prudence.”

“Where did you meet her?” Enjolras slipped her coif and veil off her head, in preparation for sleep. Her hair tumbled out in thick shining braids. Joséphine didn’t even bother trying not to stare in envy.

“At a lecture at the Jardin des Plantes, about a month before you arrived here,” said Combeferre, pulling off her habit roughly, and throwing it on the bed. She continued to speak as she pulled the nightgown over her head. “She’s very well-read.” Combeferre’s muffled voice came through the nightgown’s fabric, until she emerged from the top with rumpled hair. “We spoke—argued, really—for a long time.” Combeferre smiled again. “She does not like the Church.”

“But you’re still friends with her?” Joséphine felt that sounded like a very awkward friendship.

“Oh, yes,” said Combeferre. “One can’t change anyone’s heart by refusing to listen to her, or hear her grievances.”

“Well, Mme Bahorel says she’ll visit here again,” Jehanne said, raising her chin defiantly, as if she was worried Combeferre would disapprove. “She especially wants to meet you, Feuilly—and Enjolras, and Joséphine. The heroines, she called you all. You and the workers.”

Joséphine snorted. “I did nothing at all. I just stood there and gaped.”

“That’s not true,” protested Enjolras. “Your presence was a show of support.”

“It wasn’t heroic,” said Feuilly. “Just—the only thing we could do. But I would like to meet this woman. She sounds like she’s good-hearted, if strange.”

“As would I,” Enjolras echoed.

“And I. She sounds wonderfully scandalous,” Joséphine said, with unconcealed excitement. A woman who was not a lady, who would fight anyone who called her respectable, who was not renowned for her prudence…it sounded fun. Fun enough that Joséphine could easily ignore her dim feeling that it was not entirely proper for a religious sister to be so eager to meet a scandalous woman. She stalked over to the chest where her nightgowns were kept. She pulled off her own habit, her thin hair falling out of the coif like sad bits of discarded knitting, and wriggled into her nightgown. “I hope she visits again soon. Although, if all you say is true, I’ll be surprised if the Prioress allows her on the grounds again.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” said Jehanne, her brow creasing. “In fact—I don’t know how she got into the garden today. She simply _appeared._ ”

“I’m not surprised.” Combeferre’s voice went very dry again. “I’m sure when she wants to visit, she’ll find her way in, the Prioress notwithstanding.”


	5. Chapter 5

It was three weeks before Mme Bahorel visited the convent again. Joséphine would have regretted the delay, but she was too pleasantly occupied. Yes, there was work, and silent prayer. But there were interesting books, and there were her fellow _réligeuses_. They had started regular classes for the women in the hat shop, to teach them to read French. “It will help them make plans with each other, and workers in other shops,” said Feuilly, with a determined lift of her chin.

“Hmmm,” Grantaire said, when she heard of it, shaking her head. “I don’t know that you’re doing them any favors. What good are books, anyway? I myself detest them. I read books, but I still detest them. They unfit me for work and pleasure both. Will reading books raise their wages, or make them sew hats any faster?”

Feuilly flushed. “It will help them demand better wages for themselves, and organize, and learn of what others are doing, and—oh, there’s no limit to it. I taught myself to read. It was worth every second of the toil, every sou spent on candles and books. And if I can share that with others, I won’t be dissuaded from it by any naysaying.” Grantaire’s tone had been light, jocular, but Feuilly sounded like she was on the verge of shouting.

Grantaire had not expected such a response. She raised her hands in half defense and half surrender, smiling. “Stop, stop—I take it back, I wouldn’t dream of dissuading you, or even trying.”

“Never mind Grantaire,” Joly said, to Feuilly. “She scoffs at everything. It’s a wonderful idea.”

However wonderful, the lessons proved to be a more complicated affair than Joséphine would have imagined. Mme Dernier, feeling none too pleased with her employees, was not inclined to allow them to use her shop after hours as a classroom. “Why not just hold them here?” Jehanne said, puzzled. “We have plenty of space.”

Enjolras, looking forbiddingly stern, said, “We asked. The Prioress refused. She thinks those workers are troublemakers, violent and undisciplined. She doesn’t want them on the grounds.”

Combeferre gave a slight smile. “I presume we’re going to sneak them onto the grounds, at least until we find an alternative?”

“Of course,” Enjolras said, with a slight smile of her own, and a shrug. And so Joséphine was occupied—not in teaching the classes, which fell to Feuilly and Combeferre—but in helping Enjolras and Jehanne orchestrate the workers’ stealthy entry and exit from the grounds, and stage diversions so that no one went near the room near the library they had commandeered for the lessons.

It was somewhat frightening. Joséphine had no particular desire to find herself in trouble here, and she knew it would be even worse for Feuilly if she were caught. “I didn’t pay any fees to come here,” Feuilly explained. “I suppose you did?”

“Yes,” Joséphine said, “though not much. It was cheaper than a dowry—that was the point.”

Feuilly nodded. “One of the older sisters—she’s dead now—brought me in when she realized I had taught myself to read. She offered me a place here without me having to pay anything. I do a great deal of work around here, but even so, I think they wouldn’t weep to throw me out.”

“We’ll make sure you don’t get caught, then,” Joséphine vowed. And they did. Enjolras was far more devious than Joséphine would have ever given her credit for. “Had you been a man,” Joséphine said, after Enjolras neatly maneuvered the senior sisters away from the entrance and the library room by expressing confusion about the presence of a wholly-imaginary man she had supposedly seen wandering the grounds, which sent the sisters off to search for this nonexistent intruder, “you would have been a general in the army, I’m sure of it.”

Jehanne, who had been scribbling something down and not saying very much, looked up sharply at that. “She still could, you know. She could disguise herself as a man.”

“I have no desire to be a general,” Enjolras said, but she gave Jehanne a very fond look.

And there was Courfeyrac, and there was Joly.

There was Joly, and Joséphine felt utterly at sea, and didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what the answer was. She didn’t even understand the question.

Joly’s visits seemed to have increased in frequency since Joséphine came to the convent. She would chat with everyone, see the garden, discuss medicine with Combeferre and admire Jehanne’s new flowers, listen to Feuilly talk about international affairs—and then, invariably, she would whisk Joséphine off for coffee and little cakes she would bring in a basket. Joly talked of her herbs, of her experiments with tisanes and cordials and liqueurs, of her cats, of her dresses. Occasionally she talked of her husband, with a cool affection, but no longing.

No, the longing was all Joséphine’s, and it was nameless and formless and overpowering.

One day they were speaking of families. “Your father had a post office, you said?” Joly examined a small, cream-filled cake before devouring half of it. They were in the garden, on a bench sheltered by willow branches. The sun poured onto Joly and Joséphine through the heavy branches, drenching them in green and gold.

“Yes. From Louis XVIII.” Not that it had lasted long. “Though Bonaparte was kind to us as well.”

“Hmmm,” said Joly, swallowing a mouthful of cake. “We have a Bonapartist branch in our family—and also a royalist one.” She laughed, a strangely harsh sound. “One of my cousins executed his own son, you know. In the Vendée. Shot him in cold blood, because the son had been fighting on the republican side, and was taken prisoner.”

“…oh,” said Joséphine. “Well. If Abraham would kill his own son to please God, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that some men would to please the king.”

“That was on my father’s side. My mother’s side, well. They had Bonapartists and some republicans, for…well, for reasons.” Joly dusted off her hands swiftly, as if to announce a change of the subject. “I suppose you’ve noticed the, er, _views_ of some of your fellow réligieuses here.”

“Ye-es,” said Joséphine cautiously, looking around for the Prioress.

“I’ve come to think like them. I didn’t, at first. What did politics have to do with me? But you know, you start to see how things connect. It’s well and good to give someone a tisane to soothe her throat, but when you know she’ll never get well because she has no money to buy enough firewood in the winter…” Joly shrugged.

“I see.” Joséphine took a sip of her tea. “I think I’m meant to say God in his wisdom will provide for her, in time, and according to his plan.”

Joly cast a sideways glance at her, dimpling. “But you don’t believe it?”

“Oh,” said Joséphine, “I do, of course. But—I don’t believe it’s good enough.” She smiled, and gave an ironical shrug. “Report my impiety to the Prioress, if you like.”

Joly’s laugh bubbled over, as giddy and sweet as champagne. She looked around, then back at Joséphine, in a conspiratorial fashion. “Can I tempt you to further impiety instead?”

Joséphine found herself fighting a blush. “I—er—that is…”

Joly gestured towards the wall. “I have two theater tickets, for tonight. And no one to—no one I’d rather go with. I know it’s breaking rules, but perhaps if you slipped out, after supper…there’s that tree trunk by the wall, I _think_ you’d be able to jump onto it and hoist yourself over without difficulty…and then there’s a bench on the other side, so you can stand on it to climb over when you come back…” Joly blushed herself, then, and bit her lip, looking as though she half expected Joséphine to be shocked.

Joséphine was. But with delight, not disapproval. “Just watch me do it! Or rather, don’t—wait for me on the other side of the wall. What time?” It would not be easy, evading all the sisters, especially her own dormitory mates. But she would do it if it killed her: to get out, to see some more of Paris unchaperoned, to (why not admit it?) be with Joly.

“Half past eight.” Joly grinned and clapped her hands together. “Oh, I can’t wait!”

At eight-fifteen that night, Joséphine slipped out of her habit and put on an old dress. The dormitory was empty. Enjolras, Combeferre and Feuilly were in the library, poring over some book or the other, and Jehanne was in the garden. The time was perfect for Joséphine to make her escape. She pled a headache, and said she was going to bed early. Then, using an old trick from childhood, she artfully arranged pillows and blankets on her bed so that, in the dark and candlelit room, it would look like someone was sleeping there. Fortunately, her bed was in the far corner; no one would need to walk by Joséphine’s bed to get to her own.

Now all she needed to do was dodge Jehanne while climbing the garden wall. Joséphine did not anticipate difficulties on that score. Surely Jehanne would be lost in contemplation of—the moon, or a flower, or some other poetic thing.

Feeling very intrepid, Joséphine descended the stairs without the aid of a candle. She looked around before going out the door into the twilight. Three long strides, and she was in the garden. She ducked behind a hedge, and made her way to the tree trunk by the wall.

She had almost reached, and was congratulating herself on her stealth and cunning, when she heard a soft voice behind her: “Oh! Bossuet! Good evening! I didn’t know you liked wandering by moonlight, too.”

It was Jehanne.

“Er.” Joséphine looked at the wall, then quickly back at Jehanne, hoping her gaze hadn’t betrayed her.

A vain hope. “You’re escaping for the night?” Jehanne’s teeth gleamed in a sudden bright smile. “How thrilling. To meet a lover?” Joséphine blushed. “Or simply to stroll about the city, at perfect liberty? No—no, you needn’t tell me. It’s private, close to your heart—I will not pry.”

In that moment, Joséphine could have kissed her. “Thank you. Truly.”

Jehanne beamed. “Are you climbing on that trunk? Here, I’ll help you—“

Joséphine stood on the trunk and heaved herself up, with Jehanne pushing energetically from below. “Good night,” Joséphine whispered over her shoulder to Jehanne, before toppling over onto the other side.

She landed softly but without grace, sinking to her knees on the dusty street. Pulling herself up, she heard a rustle of skirts from behind her.

“You escaped!” Joly came into view, dancing out of the shadows. She stretched out a hand to help Joséphine up.

“I did. It wasn’t so difficult.” Joséphine took Joly’s hand, though she could get up perfectly well without it, and held onto it for just a second too long, reluctant to let go.

But Joly immediately slipped her arm through Joséphine’s, so all was well. They walked in the direction of the theater, chattering of this and that. Joly had a new kitten, and had made some new tinctures, and she had dragged Courfeyrac to a lecture on magnetism at the Jardin des Plantes, and Courfeyrac had spent the whole time making salacious puns about magnets. 

By the time they arrived at the theater, Joséphine was nearly bouncing with excitement. The night air was cool and sharp, and they had the city before them, theirs to wander through. What could be better?

The play was a comedy. Joséphine laughed uproariously, without troubling to muffle it. She and Joly leaned on each other and shrieked with no regard to propriety. She wasn’t sure if the play itself was truly so witty, or if it was the company that made each line seem to sparkle more. Whichever it was—Joséphine could not regret her attendance, not even when they exited the theater into a light but steady drizzle of cold rain.

She had come out without her pelisse, for the night had been warm. Joly threw hers, which was wide and thick, over the both of them, and they scurried into a fiacre. Joséphine was sneezing by the time they reached the convent. Quickly she hugged Joly, and said good night, before standing on the stone bench to scramble over the slippery wall, which seemed to have grown considerably taller since earlier in the evening. She fell into the wet grass of the garden, and came up splotched with mud. Muffling her coughs, she hurried into the dormitory building and up the stairs.

At the dormitory’s door, she turned the knob as softly and slowly as she could, prepared to sneak in with absolute silence. She needn’t have troubled, though, because Enjolras, Feuilly, and Combeferre were all wide awake and huddled around a candle, poring over a book.

“Good evening,” said Combeferre, quite coolly, as if Joséphine were not sneaking back in after their official bedtime. “Where did—oh, you’re all wet. You should change into dry clothes at once, you’ll catch a chill otherwise.”

“I—oh—you’re right.” Her teeth were chattering, just a little. She peeled off her clothes and pulled on a nightdress, which felt blessedly warm and dry. Then she dove under the blankets on her bed, and after a few minutes of shivering, during which she could feel the others’ concerned eyes upon her, she fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Joséphine woke up the next day feeling like someone was smothering her with a pillow. Either she was going mad—as there was no pillow on her face, nor would any of her new sisters stoop to murdering someone in their sleep (challenging her to a duel, possibly, though that was more in Courfeyrac’s line)—or else she’d caught a terrible cold.

Combeferre confirmed the latter, looming suddenly over Joséphine, though Joséphine had not seen her approach. “You’re sick,” Combeferre said. “I left you some handkerchiefs on the nightstand there. And here, drink this—” She handed Joséphine a large and steaming mug. Joséphine sipped at it gratefully. It was lemony and had honey in it. “We’ve told the Prioress you’re sick, so no one expects you to come down. Though,” she added, with a glimmer of amusement, “we did not tell her _how_ you fell sick. The next time you sneak out to meet Joly—or was it Courfeyrac?—at night, you should bring your umbrella.”

“I know, I know,” Joséphine said, or rather, croaked. “Joly shared her pelisse with me, but I gave it back before I ran in from the fiacre.”

“Hmm,” said Combeferre. “Well—you need rest. I’ve left some books on the stand in case you’re bored, but you should try to sleep. We’ll bring up your meals for you.”

Joséphine tried to thank her, but she feared what came out was more like a frog’s ribbit than a human word. She blew her nose vigorously after Combeferre left, undoubtedly off to translate hieroglyphs or develop an improved flying balloon. After blowing, she felt much better—at least now she could breathe without sounding like a dying dog. She closed her eyes and had no trouble at all falling asleep.

When she woke again, the light coming in through the window was dim and fading. The room was half smudgy shadows and half watery light, as if it were waiting to have its passport checked on the border between day and night. Joséphine looked around, and only then saw Joly sitting there by her bedside, veiled by shadows. “Oh,” Joséphine said, her voice sounding clearer. She managed a smile.

“I told the Prioress I’d heard you were ill, and wanted to visit to cheer you,” Joly said, smiling back.

“Very virtuous.”

“And I brought you this—it’s chamomile.” Another hot thing to drink. “And your supper—you’ve eaten nothing all day long.”

“I haven’t been hungry,” said Joséphine. “I couldn’t even think of eating, before. I was asleep.”

Joly made a tutting noise with her tongue, and reached out to feel Joséphine’s forehead. The doctorly touch turned into a caress. Joséphine shamelessly pressed against it, treasuring the feeling of Joly’s hand in her hair and against her cheek. “You’re burning up,” Joly said, her voice going soft for just a moment. But then: “You should eat.” She pulled her hand back to pick up the tray of food. Joséphine grumbled, but obediently pushed herself up to sit. The food was simple, broth and bread, and the chamomile tisane was not unpleasant. Joly kept up a constant hum of chatter, while watching with a hawkish eye to make sure Joséphine ate. She stayed until the others came back for bed. Joséphine could not think of how to say she wished Joly would stay.

The next afternoon, when Joly visited again, Joséphine would have _liked_ to tell her the chamomile concoction had worked wonders—but unfortunately, Joséphine’s condition was slightly worse. Her eyes were watery and red, and her lips and tongue were swollen. “Oh, dear,” Joly said, frowning. “I think the chamomile must not agree with you! I recognize the symptoms—but the sensitivity is so very rare, I didn’t even think of it. How unlucky!”

Joséphine sighed, and gave a philosophical shrug. _Bonjour, Guignon._ This sort of thing simply happened to her. “I’d never had chamomile before, oddly, so I didn’t know either. Never mind. Stay with me a while, that’ll be better medicine than any mess of herbs.” She tried to say this lightly, and if it failed, well, it could be blamed on her swollen mouth, couldn’t it?

Regardless, Joly stayed; since Joséphine couldn’t talk very well, Joly talked for them both. Joséphine was soon laughing. She forgot her aching eyes and stuffed nose and swollen mouth, forgot everything but Joly. “I’m so glad you’re visiting,” Joséphine said. “I’d go mad otherwise.”

“Oh,” Joly said, “I’m sure Combeferre or someone else would stay with you if I wasn’t here.”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” Joséphine blurted out, and then couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

Joly turned to look Joséphine full in the face. “No. I suppose not.” She drew her chair closer to the bed, where Joséphine was propped up. “Though I confess—I don’t know how to properly describe how it’s not. I just know it’s not.” She slipped her hand into Joséphine’s.

“Can you improperly describe it?” Joséphine tried to sound teasing. She feared she sounded plaintive instead.

Joly looked at the ceiling, at the floor, out the window, and then back at Joséphine, before turning her face to the ceiling again. “I know when I see you, I’m as giddy and wild and happy as other women say they are when they see their sweethearts, or their husbands.” Joly’s voice was low, and held an impatient note. “Is that improper enough for you?”

Joséphine felt her face grow hot. “I—me too—that is—no, not enough, not nearly—” Words usually came easy and unbidden to her, and now she felt like she had forgotten how to speak.

Joly made an even more impatient noise. “I don’t know what to do with you.” She contradicted herself then, by showing she had a very good idea of what to do: she bent over Joséphine to kiss her cheekbone, and lingered for a very long moment. When Joséphine did not move away, Joly kissed her way down to Joséphine’s mouth. Joséphine remained absolutely still, too stunned to even breathe.

For a second, anyway. Then Joséphine recovered, and tilted her face to kiss back, sliding her hand into the soft waves of Joly’s hair. Joly fell forward so she was on the bed next to Joséphine, which was even more marvelous. Joséphine could put her arms around Joly and hold her close as they kissed.

The squeak of the door hinge made them jump apart. Joly was back in her chair before Joséphine could blink. Jehanne stood at the doorway, blushing a delicate shade of purple and looking anywhere but at Joséphine and Joly. She had seen it, that much was obvious. Joséphine and Joly began to stammer inarticulately at the same time. "It's all right," Jehanne said, with a sudden return of her poise, and a reassuring smile. "Everyone's coming up for bed."

"I should go, then," said Joly. 

"No," Joséphine said, on instinct, but Joly was getting to her feet and gathering up her coat, and Joséphine knew she was right. The convent was closed to outsiders after dark. Probably the others would overlook it if Joly remained, but suddenly Joséphine didn't want to have to explain anything about her time spent with Joly to anyone, however kind they were. "Good night, then," she said, resigned.

Joly hesitated for just a moment before giving Joséphine's cheek a brief kiss on her way out the door. Joséphine was left to field the others' questions about her health, and did her best to seem untroubled as she answered. She didn't know how successful she was, or how badly she gave herself away. All she knew was that she was overcome with relief when Jehanne blew out the last candle, and Joséphine could relax in the solitude of the dark. 

The next day, at two o’clock—Joly's usual hour of visiting—Courfeyrac came instead.

Courfeyrac wasted no time on pleasantries. She smiled—a catlike, knowing smile. “Do you remember when you asked me about La Maupin?”

“Yes,” Joséphine said, startled.

“Well. I’ll tell you all about her. She was born Julie d’Aubigny—she was cursed with a particle, as I was. Oh, yes, my maiden name was actually _de_ Courfeyrac. But La Maupin didn’t let her particle chain her down. She studied fencing, and became a master dueler. And a wonderful opera singer, too. In my favorite part of her storied career, she fell in love. With a young lady. Oh, yes,” Courfeyrac added, with a twist of her lips, “ _that_ kind of love. The carnal kind, not the sisterly kind.”

Joséphine did not know where to look, but she knew enough to avoid looking at Courfeyrac’s face.

“The young lady’s parents sent her to a convent. One for cloistered nuns, not active sisters like you. I think it was the Visitandines, in Avignon. You’d think that would be the end of the matter, but no. Not for La Maupin, who joined the convent herself, and then—would you believe it—she stole a dead nun’s corpse, placed it in her beloved’s bed, set fire to the room, and made a grand escape.” Courfeyrac clasped her hands together and grinned. “I was so thrilled when I read of her.”

Joséphine, still at a loss, said nothing. Courfeyrac went on, “She was tried in absentia for kidnapping, and a few other things. Tried as a man, if you can believe it—and sentenced to death by fire. She went on the run for a while, and got herself pardoned for it later.” Courfeyrac shook her head. “Her death sentence did nothing to put me off her story. It made me love her all the more. I wanted to be like her, to have exploits rivaling hers…but now, I must admit, it seems Joly’s beaten me in that regard. At least, as far as corrupting _réligeuses_ is concerned.”

Joséphine opened and closed her mouth, feeling her face grow hot. Courfeyrac laughed. “I’m not judging, believe it or not. I’m no priest or nun. La Maupin is the closest thing I have to a patron saint. I’m jealous of your adventure, the two of you.”

Finally Joséphine turned her head to look at Courfeyrac, who was smiling faintly, but seemed in deadly earnest. “Adventure! Is that how you see it?”

“Why, yes.”

“Not—not sin? Not depravity? Not something so unnatural I barely even know what to call it?”

“I know what to call it. It’s love. And sin? Well—perhaps sometimes it is. The Church calls it a sin when a man and woman lie together outside marriage, but you know—you must know—people who don’t have property often don’t bother getting married. And men with property, even if they are married, nearly always lie with women who aren’t their wives. Are they all sinning? Or does it depend on the hearts of those involved?” Courfeyrac leaned forward, all trace of a smile gone, eyes glinting. “It must be the latter. If no one is harmed, if no one complains of their rights—why, who but God may judge?”

Joséphine, transfixed, couldn’t look away, as much as she wanted to hide under her blankets. Instead she said, through dry throat and lips, “Joly has a husband. He has rights, and would surely complain of them if he knew—”

Courfeyrac snorted. “My dear,” she said, “Joly’s husband is gone half the year, and when he isn’t—well. Let us say he isn’t the most attentive of husbands, nor the most jealous, hmmm?”

“Even inattentive husbands may not wish to be cuckolded, even by a woman,” Joséphine said.

“Bossuet, Bossuet,” Courfeyrac said, with a dramatic sigh, “ask Joly about her husband before you nobly give her up out of respect for his rights, hmm? I would tell you more, but it’s really her story to tell. All I will say is that she and I both chose our particular husbands for a reason. And now, I must be off—I have errands, and you look utterly worn out. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Er,” said Joséphine.

“Go to sleep. When you’re well rested, and recovered, and feeling better, then talk to Joly. And remember La Maupin.”

Only Courfeyrac would hold up a woman sentenced to death by fire for lewd and violent conduct as _an example._

Nevertheless, Courfeyrac’s advice on sleep was sound, and Joséphine did her best to follow it.


	7. Chapter 7

Joséphine slept solidly for more than fourteen hours. It was dawn when she woke, alert and ravenous. Her nose was still stuffed and her throat still raw, but she was suffused with an energy she had not felt since she woke up the morning after the theater.

She sprang out of bed, and quickly washed and dressed. Breakfast would not be for some time yet, but she couldn’t stand to stay in bed one moment longer. And she didn’t wish to wait in the room until everyone woke up and began chattering and asking questions. No, she needed a good brisk rambling walk and the solitude of her thoughts. At least here, in the convent, she could walk all over the grounds at will. At home she only had the house and courtyard, and beyond that she would have required a chaperone. That constricted life was no more. Bossuet—for so she’d begun to think of herself, in odd moments—could go where she pleased.

She went to the garden, sauntering through the trees with no particular aim. After about ten minutes of such wandering, she rounded a shady beech, and almost walked straight into a woman who dropped from its lowest branch.

“Oh! I beg your pardon! Are you hurt?” Bossuet offered a hand to help the woman up, but the woman jumped to her feet unaided, with a raucous laugh.

“No, not hurt.” The woman—dressed in a crimson gown, and clearly no _réligieuse_ —looked her up and down, and gave her a lupine grin. “You must be Mlle Bossuet.”

“Yes,” said Bossuet, “and you are…Mme Bahorel?” It had to be. The gown, and the grin…

“I answer to that name,” said Mme Bahorel, still grinning. “I hear you and some of your friends have been making a good deal of trouble.” She sounded gleeful, but nevertheless wagged her finger at Bossuet.

“Lies,” said Bossuet, “the purest slander. We have been putting trouble to rights.”

“Have you now! A knight-errant in a habit!” Mme Bahorel laughed. “I’m not surprised my friend Combeferre has collected such people around her. She told me she wanted to, you know. She said she and some others planned to make a little circle of heretics and subversives. And it seems she’s managed it, even in this place.” She looked around at the innocuous garden scenery with an air of horror mixed with disdain.

“This place isn’t so bad as you might think,” said Bossuet.

“So Combeferre insists,” said Mme Bahorel. “But that woman could be happy in a prison so long as she had sufficient books.”

“Now, be fair,” said Bossuet, grinning, “she would also require fearsome insects, and bits of skeletons, and scientific equipment, and hapless human subjects to practice on. Books alone wouldn’t do.”

“Add in a theater, and I’ll call your prison a palace,” said Combeferre, appearing suddenly from behind a tree. Bossuet jumped—and so did Mme Bahorel, though she hid it better. Combeferre did not precisely smirk, but she did look very pleased with herself. In the distance, Bossuet could see Enjolras, Feuilly, and Jehanne making their way towards them.

“Why are you sneaking around?” Mme Bahorel demanded. “It’s unbecoming of a holy woman like yourself.”

“How did you even get in here?” Combeferre demanded in response. “No one’s at the gate to let visitors in, it’s still too early for that.”

Mme Bahorel widened her eyes in a theatrical fashion. “You’re right. It must be a miracle.”

Combeferre snorted. “Yes. Let’s go alert the Prioress to this miracle, shall we? I’m sure she’ll be honored to have a saint on the convent grounds.”

“You’re a cruel woman, Combeferre, to make such threats,” Mme Bahorel said, with an exaggerated shudder. “No, I insist on a better death than to choke on your Prioress’s sanctimony. But ah, it looks like your friends are here—”

“Bahorel,” Jehanne said, her face lighting up. “I didn’t know you were visiting today.”

Bahorel pulled her into an embrace. “I was going to come find you, but Combeferre was interrogating me first. Am I free to go, madame l’inspecteur?” Bahorel gave Combeferre a mock-bow. “Or do you detain me?”

“I wouldn’t dream of keeping you here for one second longer than necessary,” said Combeferre, but a smile escaped her anyway. She made the introductions, and Bahorel’s eyebrows rose at Enjolras’s and Feuilly’s names.

“The other two looters from the hat shop,” Bahorel said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“It was the owner who was looting.” Enjolras’s voice was serene, and yet severe. “Feuilly was merely trying to persuade her.” 

“I hear you’re also holding classes for the women who work at that shop, to teach them to read in French,” said Bahorel.

“Yes,” Feuilly broke in, with sudden eagerness. “It’s difficult, because Mme Dernier won’t let us hold the classes in the shop after hours.”

“And the Prioress doesn’t want to allow those women on our grounds,” Jehanne added, scowling.

“She considers them a pack of violent hoodlums,” said Feuilly, with a matching scowl.

“Ah!” Bahorel waved her hand. “But that’s a problem easily fixed. My rooms are yours, Sister Feuilly—they’re not far from here, and you may bring those ladies over at any time.”

“But that’s wonderful!” Feuilly beamed.

“Your Prioress may not think so,” said Bahorel, with a laugh. “Not if she learns where Monsieur Bahorel is.”

Feuilly frowned. “Where is he?”

“In Provence, on our family farm, where he and my mother raised me.”

There was a pause. “It doesn’t matter,” said Enjolras at last, somehow managing to radiate both sternness and acceptance, “it can have no bearing on the value of the gift you offer.”

Combeferre nodded. “The Prioress won’t approve, but it makes no difference. We’ll simply be discreet.”

“There are about twelve women who regularly attend,” Feuilly interjected, “I suppose you have room for them all?” When Bahorel nodded, Feuilly smiled, her eyes crinkling. “We’ll get so much more done, if we have a regular space we can use.”

At this juncture, Jehanne, who had been gazing up at the sun and writing in a little book while the others talked, interjected, “I think it’s almost breakfast time.” Oddly practical, for a poet, but then Bossuet supposed one effect of constantly looking at the sky was a keener than average sense of what time it was.

“I’ll leave the way I came,” said Bahorel, without specifying which way that was. She gave Feuilly and Enjolras her address before leaving, so they would know where they could hold the classes for the hat shop workers.

Breakfast was as usual, and so was gardening afterwards, and studying with Combeferre after that. It was so much as usual that Bossuet was almost shocked in the afternoon when she came upon Joly, walking up the path from the gate. Somehow in the course of two days, Joly had become something other than usual, something wild and a little frightening.

Bossuet came to a standstill in the path. She would not run away; she knew what she would do. If she could only keep from quailing.

“You see I’m recovered,” she said, when Joly drew near. “The chamomile may have made my face swell, but you did _something_ right. Are you and Combeferre keeping score of who’s cured more people? If so, you may count me as one of your successes.”

“I wouldn’t dare keep score against her,” said Joly, the anxiety on her face dissolving as she smiled. She slipped her arm through Bossuet’s, and began to steer her to the garden. “I—I was nervous about seeing you, I must admit. Because of, well…”

“Yes,” said Bossuet, feeling like a fool. “Yes. Me too. I—Courfeyrac said you had some sort of special arrangement with your husband? She implied it wouldn’t be wronging him if we…well. That is, if you wanted to…”

“Yes—I do—and I do—I mean—yes.” Joly laughed, and blushed, and squeezed Bossuet’s arm. “I want to. About my husband—Courfeyrac introduced me to him, you know. I was so envious of her, because she married a childhood friend who she knew so well, and she knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—tyrannize over her. You haven’t met him, but he’s the sweetest, gentlest man I’ve met. As gentle as a woman. Courfeyrac helps him stand up to his father and his family, and he never even dreams of ordering her about, or restraining her from doing as she pleases. I—I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to do _anything_ I liked, ever—that I would pass from my father’s rule to a stern husband’s without any chance to read or experiment or help anyone, or even breathe freely for just a moment.” Here, Joly paused, and gave a wry smile. “I know I’m not fiery like Courfeyrac. I seem good-natured, and people think that means obedient. But I just couldn’t bear the thought.” They reached the garden, which brimmed over with afternoon sunlight. “Courfeyrac arranged for me to meet Léon—our families all know each other—and he—well, it solved most of my problems. Including one I didn’t know I’d have…”

“What do you mean?” Bossuet said, and then added, “I don’t mean to pry. I just want to know I’m not putting you in a difficult position, with your husband—”

Joly tugged her down to sit on a bench beside an oak. “No,” she said. “He—well, as I’ve told you, he travels a lot, on business. And he…well. He has a secret of his own, and I allow it, and keep it.”

Bossuet wanted very badly to ask _what_ secret, but bit her tongue. Joly, seeing her curiosity on her face, sighed, and shrugged, and said, “I’ll tell you. But you mustn’t ever repeat it.”

“Of course not,” Bossuet said.

“He greatly prefers the companionship of men,” said Joly. “He has a, a friend—he wants to be with him. But he has no wish to disgrace his family, either, or to fail to continue their line…so after we met, and found we got on, he offered marriage, on the terms that I would keep his secret, and otherwise do as I please, so long as I had no children that weren’t his.”

“…oh,” said Bossuet. “Well. So that’s not a danger here, not at all.”

Joly giggled. “No. Though there are others—should your Prioress find out—”

“Yes,” said Bossuet, making a face. “Courfeyrac told me the story of La Maupin, but curiously, she neglected to tell me what happened to Maupin’s nun, when their affair was over.”

“Oh,” Joly said, surprised, “She returned to her family.”

“Hmm. And how did they receive her, after her escapades?”

“I don’t know,” Joly admitted. She turned to face Bossuet. “I think Courfeyrac would say that whatever it was, it was worth it, for the sake of love and freedom and adventure.”

Bossuet looked away. “And what do you say?”

Joly turned pink. “I say you needn’t ever worry about that, because even if you’re thrown out of here in disgrace, you’ll always have a place with me. No matter what. Even if you tire of me, my house will be open to you.”

Bossuet looked back at Joly, and turned rather pink herself. “I—” It was sweet, more than sweet. Bossuet didn’t know what to say, though part of her did note that such a situation would put her entirely at Joly’s mercy, and while she didn’t mind that necessarily, and she trusted Joly…

Joly must have sensed her ambivalence, because she gave Bossuet a light slap on the shoulder, and said, grinning, “Even if you don’t trust _me_ —”

“I do, I do!”

“--it’s not as though Courfeyrac would leave you to your fate for one second. Or the sisters here, for that matter. Do you imagine Enjolras, or Combeferre, or Feuilly, or Jehanne, _any_ of them, not helping you, if you were in trouble?”

“Hardly,” said Bossuet, with a smile. “Then, are we—I mean, do we—will we—” Why was she unable to complete a sentence when talking about these things?

Joly kissed her cheek. “I’d kiss you properly,” she said, in a low voice, and taking Bossuet’s hand, “but anyone can walk into this garden.”

“The small room in the back of the library,” said Bossuet, immediately. “Nobody will be there, and the door locks.”

“You thought about this in advance, didn’t you?” Joly said, with a laugh. She rose, and pulled Bossuet up with her. “Lead on, then.”

Smiling, Bossuet did.


	8. Epilogue: 1832

“Here,” Enjolras hissed over the wall, at the three bloodied men who were rushing down the street. She and Bossuet reached down to help the men climb up and over, into the garden, where Combeferre and Joly waited with bandages and needles, behind the cover of a row of bushes.

Had Bossuet been told, upon entering the convent, that a mere six years later she would be sheltering rebels through two days of barricades and gunfire, she would have kept the conversation going as long as she could, believing herself to be speaking to an entertaining variety of madman. But the madman would have been a prophet, for here she was.

Every step along the way had seemed so logical: help Kamilia, Anna, and the other workers of the hat shop get paid. Teach them to read and write in French. Help them organize. Hide them when the police objected to their organizing. Help their husbands and brothers and fathers, too.

The end result of all these logical steps was that, by the time of the uprising at Lamarque’s funeral, many rebels had heard the Dominican convent was the place to run to for sanctuary when pursued by soldiers and the National Guard.

The addition of these three newcomers meant that twenty-one insurgents—seventeen men, four women, including Bahorel—were hiding at the convent now. Combeferre and Joly tended to their wounds in the garden, and then they’d be whisked away to the room off the library, where they would wait until they could be safely smuggled to the houses of Joly and Courfeyrac. A few rebels had gone directly to Joly’s and Courfeyrac’s, but the convent was better-known as a sanctuary, and closer to most of the barricades.

Such was the plan. It had worked tolerably well so far, though they had to keep the Prioress and the sisters who were _not_ their allies in the dark about their guests. It was no easy matter, sneaking wounded men into the convent in broad daylight. Yet they had managed it, with great difficulty and greater deceit. Now Bossuet held down a thrashing insurgent’s leg, and stuck a bit of leather in his mouth for him to bite down on, while Combeferre stitched up the deep gash on his thigh.

“Enjolras!” Feuilly’s voice was low, but it conveyed the urgency of a shout.

Enjolras was practically dragging another insurgent from tree to bush for cover as she moved him in the direction of the library. At the sound of Feuilly’s voice, she pushed the man behind a large shrub, and went over to speak with her, within earshot of Bossuet and Combeferre. “What is it?”

“Jehanne,” said Feuilly, in tones of indignation mixed with despair. “The Prioress caught her bringing one of the men to the library…”

Enjolras started. “Did she send for the police?”

“No—Jehanne, bless her, thought of a lie. The man wasn’t obviously bleeding. So she pretended as though she was sneaking him in because they were lovers.”

“Oh,” Enjolras said softly. “Oh. What did—”

“The Prioress has cast her out,” Feuilly said. “Threw her in the street with her belongings—and threw her poems in the fire. Called them filthy and sinful.”

Enjolras’s face grew very still. “The man who was with her?”

“He was thrown out with her…I told them to wait at the corner, and then Joly or Courfeyrac could—”

“I’ll find them and bring them home,” Courfeyrac said, materializing at Enjolras’s side.

Enjolras nodded, and touched Courfeyrac’s shoulder in silent thanks. Courfeyrac went off, taking the third insurgent, who was only slightly injured, with her.

Enjolras turned back to look at Feuilly. “This can’t stand,” she said.

Combeferre finished stitching the insurgent’s wound, and looked up. “Do you think it’s time to break away, as we’ve discussed?”

It was Feuilly who answered. “Of course we must. We can’t abandon Jehanne, and it’s perfectly clear those in charge of this place have no interest in the Republic, or the peoples, or anything—”

“We have no land,” Bossuet said, standing up and brushing her skirts off. “No money, no place to go.”

“Courfeyrac and I have money, as you well know,” Joly broke in. “What could be easier, than for us to endow the creation of a new chapter? And Bahorel would contribute, and maybe Enjolras’s family…”

“But you don’t have a suitable house with grounds, do you?” Bossuet frowned. “I suppose we could simply purchase one, but that would take time…”

“I have land,” Grantaire interjected. She had said nothing at all for hours, merely sat under a tree with a surreptitious bottle of wine, watching everyone with a mix of amusement and despondency. She had been their constant companion for years, and their constant naysayer as well, too good-humored and kind-hearted to be cast off. But to hear her offer to help, in seeming earnest? Bossuet looked at her with skepticism.

So did Enjolras, who frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I have land,” Grantaire repeated, pushing the bottle aside and pushing herself to her feet. “Or—my late husband did, to be precise.”

Combeferre frowned. “Didn’t he—”

“Discard me?” Grantaire gave a toothy grin. “Yes, and forbade me to disgrace his name by using it, but then he died, and I was still married to him at the time. So I inherited his land. In Meaux, my dear eagle, as it happens,” she added, with an exaggerated bow at Bossuet.

“And you would allow us to use it, to set up our own chapter there?” Enjolras stepped forward, her eyes shining.

Grantaire fidgeted, and looked away. “Yes. If you want it.”

Enjolras seized Grantaire’s hand, smiling. “Thank you.”

When the moment grew uncomfortably long, Bossuet decided to save Grantaire from her embarrassment, and said, “We should get this fellow and the one behind the bush to safety.”

Enjolras nodded, and turned back to the man behind the bush. Combeferre and Feuilly helped the man whose thigh Combeferre had been stitching to his feet, and together began the arduous process of moving him to his hiding place.

Grantaire moved toward the wall. “I’ll send a letter to my lawyer,” she said, “and have him draw up a deed.”

“A lawyer! My, my, how respectable we are,” Bossuet said, making her eyes big and impressed. Grantaire flicked her with a handkerchief before climbing over the wall.

Bossuet, now alone with Joly in the garden, sank onto a bench. Joly sat beside her, laughing a little, more out of excitement than amusement. “So,” she said. “You’ve done La Maupin one better, I see. You’ll have your own convent. Where you all can engage in all the subversive activities you please, in the open, with no need to set fire to anything and flee.”

“You have a standing invitation, of course,” Bossuet said, putting her arm around Joly’s shoulders, and Joly smiled. 

**Author's Note:**

> The kind of convent the Amies are in is for [Dominican sisters](http://www.domlife.org/BeingDominican/WhoWeAre/Sisters.htm), whose activities aren't quite the same as the [Dominican nuns](http://www.domlife.org/BeingDominican/WhoWeAre/Nuns.htm); this distinction goes back to the [Middle Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Order_of_Saint_Dominic#Origin). 
> 
> Julie d'Aubigny (La Maupin) was, thankfully, [a real person.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d%27Aubigny)


End file.
